Overcompensation
by dirtyprettything
Summary: Chandler overcompensates for people doubting his sexuality “If you had to pick one of the other two guys to go out with, who would you pick?” [JoeyChandler slash]


Genre – Romance/Angst

Format – 3rd person personal

Couplings – Joey/Chandler

Warnings – slash, implied sex, sex, bad language

A/N – AU, Mondler never happened, or alternately, the little scenario I've taken from the script happened around Season 3. And listen people, I didn't put this up here for myself… PLEASE REVIEW IT if you read it because I really like this one and I feel bad that it hasn't got as many reviews as some of the others as a review:length ratio.

Summary – Chandler overcompensates for people doubting his sexuality; "If you had to pick one of the other tow guys to go out with, who would you pick?"

_This scene is taken from Season 6 Episode 12 'The One with the Joke'_

**Chandler:** Hey.  
**Rachel:** Hey. Oh, I have a question. If-if one of you had to pick one of the other two guys to go out with, who would you pick?  
**Ross:** No way.  
**Joey:** I'm not answering that.  
**Chandler:** Joey! _(Pause as they all stare at him.)_ No way. I'm not answering that.

**Overcompensation  
**Joey always knew that when he slept with Chandler he'd be on top.  
Come to think of it, Joey always kind of knew there'd be a when. There was always this sexual tension between them that he couldn't deny – it was apparent in their actions, their movements, interwoven into the essence of their friendship, a co-dependence so comfortable that a platonic marriage hadn't exactly been an outlandish suggestion to make.

But their relationship had suddenly become non-platonic, and Joey wasn't particularly well equipped to attempt to comprehend this new development, especially when feelings the after-effects of a few too many martinis in the form of a blinding hangover at 9am on a Saturday morning. But he had always been more secure about himself than Chandler, and now, with his arm around Chandler's warm body, pressed up against his back, the thing Joey was most worried about was how Chandler was going to react when he woke up.

He thought about moving slowly away, but he didn't want to, and he didn't really feel that after everything, he should be hiding his feelings. Almost impulsively, he leaned forward and kissed the back of Chandler's neck, on the side, just below the hairline, and smiled. He wondered whether it would be so bad to wake up like this every morning.  
Strangely enough, he found that the answer was no, no it wouldn't.

---

"And then, to top it all, he described me as having a 'platonic marriage' with Joey!"

"Oh OK, so that's why you two are always, you know, flirting."

"Wh-what Pheebs?"

"You and Joey, that's why you're always flirting."

"I do not flirt with Joey!"

"Oh sure, the long lingering looks into each others eyes, copying each others movements, doing everything together, always looking for excuses to hug…"

"Are you serious?!"

"Yeah, you should see yourselves; there was this one time…"

"I'm not gay!"

"That's what _you_ think."

"Phoebe, I would know!"

"Uh-huh OK. What about that time we asked you who you'd date out of the guys, and you yelled out Joey _really_ loudly?"

"That was a game! It was him or Ross!"

"It's alright Chandler, you can have him, I'm sure he wants you too!"

"Joey's gay? I mean – wait, I don't want him!"

"OK, sure."

"Pheebs!"

---

"Hey Joe"

"Hey man, you want a martini?"

"Sure, why not. Why are we drinking martinis?"

"There was martini stuff in the fridge that needed using."

"How many have you had?"

"I dunno…"

"That many, huh? Fill me up!"

"Here you go…"

"No date tonight?"

"Nah, I thought I'd stay home and drink martinis."

"Good plan. What's on TV? Diehard? Excellent…"

---

"OK, so Joey, I've had enough martinis to say this… I was talking to Phoebe, and do you remember that time when we were all asked out of the guys who we'd… you know…"

"No?"

"You know… date…"

"Uh… no…"

"The girls asked us Joey! We were asked who we'd date, and out of you and Ross I picked you!"

"Oh yeah… look, don't get offended man, I'd date you too I just didn't want to upset Ross."

"You'd date me?"

"Well you'd date me so…"

"I never said I'd date you! I wouldn't date you! That's what I was trying to say. I'd just date you out of you and Ross!"

"What, so I'm not good enough for you?"

"I am not having this conversation with you!"

"Fine! But you know you really want some Joey-love!"

"Would you listen to yourself?"

"Alright, alright calm down."

"Ha, yeah, sure… I'm not gay."

"…OK."

"There was a doubt! I heard the doubt! You don't believe I'm not gay! You think I'm gay!"

"No, Chandler I do not think you're…"

"You think I'm gay!"

"Well, look, not that I _do_ think you're gay, because I _don't_, I'm just saying that some people _may_ find you to have gay… tendencies, because you've always had this _quality_ about you, and you always seem so insecure of your sexuality, like you'd never even joke about it with a guy because you're scared it would turn you on."

"That's not true! I'm secure of my sexuality!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah! I'm secure! In – in fact, I'll… I'll kiss you right now just to prove it!"

"Look, Chandler, I don't need proof, if you say you're not gay then I believe you, and to be honest, I don't particularly want to– mmph!"

---

That was how it had started.

Joey had been standing by the sideboard in the apartment, and not really thinking about anything, when lips had met his, and he responded to this with an entirely reflex reaction, which was to kiss back. He found his hands had traveled up Chandler's neck and were in his hair when the fairer man jumped back, eyes wary and wide with surprise. Joey could only guess what his own expression conveyed, as he had no real idea how he was feeling, it seemed his thoughts and emotions were totally unable to communicate.

"Joe… wh-what are you doing?"

"I… uh… I don't know." Replied Joey, and he was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. He was vaguely aware of feelings trying to reconnect with his brain, but only a slight confusion pervaded; no reaction he would have associated with attempting to make out with another man.

Joey thought about this; he had never had a problem with gay people, and even during the times he believed that Chandler was gay he would never have given him up as a best friend, but similarly if he were at a bar and some guy slapped his ass he would be the first to tell him to back off, or even punch him if he persisted. Joey had never looked at another man and felt the tiniest twinge of an attraction, but given the passion he'd just demonstrated when kissing Chandler, he felt that he was going to have to seriously reconsider his sexuality, especially since, looking at Chandler's slightly ruffled hair and stark blue eyes, he wanted to do it again.

"Oh my God Joey, are you… do you… are you…" Chandler's face suddenly rearranged itself into a familiar expression; shock bordering on incredulity with a dash of frozen disbelief.

"I really don't… know" was the only honest response that Joey could give, and he knew that by this time his expression was one of apologetic confusion, although he still felt strangely detached from the situation. He blinked, slowly.

It was as if then, reality crashed down around him. Panic ensued, and Joey noted that Chandler's eyebrows were raised so high they seemed to dissolve into the creases in his forehead, and he exhaled various garbled astonished noises for a few seconds.

Joey cleared his throat loudly, turned around and reached for a beer on the sideboard, as he and Chandler often did when they'd hugged, or looked at each other for a little too long, with that content, serene smile plastered on their faces. Joey thought it pertinent that it was at this moment he realized that no one else could make Chandler smile like that.

"No, Joey, what was that? It certainly didn't feel like… I mean, _that_ felt more like… a real kiss." Joey felt Chandler's hand on his shoulder as he tried to turn him around from the sideboard to face him.

"Well, so what?" Joey said, and he started to feel like himself again, all masculine pride and disconnected emotions. He shrugged, brushing Chandler's hand off. "I kiss a lot of people Chandler, it's just a reflex. God, chill out."

"Oh come on Joey I know what I felt on my mouth, and it wasn't just some kiss. I know it wasn't." Chandler's voice was soft, and seemed so full of understanding that Joey did turn around, and confronted with the close proximity of brilliant, intense eyes, felt words fail in his throat.

"Uh… I, uh… just…" Chandler had always been the one who was good with words, and Joey wished, now more than ever, that he had that ability to be articulate. Without thinking he reached out and brushed his thumb over Chandler's forehead. To his surprise Chandler's eyes closed and he drew a ragged breath, exhaling shakily, almost blissfully, before Joey felt his hand shoved away and a cold space where Chandler's body had stood.

"What are you doing?" his voice was panic-tinged.

"Nothing Chandler, look, I –"

"I told you I wasn't gay. I told you I wasn't, because I'm not. I'm not gay, totally not gay. Not gay at all." His voice had managed to dwindle up an octave in the time it took to babble that sentence.

"Chandler…"

"No, Joey, no. You cannot do this to me; you can't turn round and tell me that you're… or I'm… or that we're…" Chandler had moved away from Joey and was backing, with wide, panicked eyes towards the door. He fumbled in mid-sentence and mid-step, almost toppling backwards over his shoes.

"Chandler!" growled Joey, sternly, walking towards him and grabbing him by the shoulders. He shook him firmly. "No-one is trying to tell you anything. That was a new sensation for both of us and we're both trying to understand what it…" out of nowhere, a fist came flying towards Joey's face. He blocked it with ease, but was unable to mask the look of pain and bewilderment that crossed his face. "Chandler… what –" he managed before another fist managed to locate its target. Joey stumbled backwards, clutching his nose, and looking at Chandler's eyes saw a range of emotions flit across them; anxiety, perplexity, sorrow, anger and self-directed hatred.

Suddenly Joey felt no sympathy for the disoriented wreck standing in front of him. He was a man of action rather than one of words, and when a Tribbiani was hit in the face there was only one thing that he could do, and he felt no regrets when watching Chandler reel from the impact of an equally well directed punch.

There was a smash as the foosball table was upended by the forceful impact of tumbling bodies. Chandler launched himself at Joey and the two crashed to the floor, Joey angrily struggling to knock some sense into his friend. They rolled over the carpet and each other, arms locked together and wrestling, legs flailing and propelling, teeth snarling, panting.

"What's you're problem, man?" growled Joey as he pinned Chandler to the ground "So maybe I could have feelings for you. I saw the way you looked at me just then too, what's so wrong about that? Why can't you accept things for the way they are? What are you afraid of?" there was a snarl as Chandler reversed their positions, and, restraining Joey's arms by the shoulder rasped at him.

"What are you trying to do to me?"

"You're…" replied Joey, gasping for air "totally overreacting…"

"Am I?!" wheezed Chandler, and his eyes flashed in an unhinged manner "Am I _really_?" Joey took advantage of his friend's outburst of sarcasm-laden fury to flip him over onto his back, and with a roar the wrestling resumed, fast-paced and ferocious. They were both breathless, bruised and scraped by the time that Joey reasserted himself.

But as Joey wrenched Chandler forwards before slamming him back into the floor, eyes ablaze with fury and frustration, he noted that all the fight had gone from Chandler's body, and that all was left was a limp, hollow frame. They both stopped struggling and Joey found his heavy breathing oddly loud in the still apartment. He relaxed his grip on Chandler's arms and stared at the other man, both of them gasping to regain their breath. Chandler's face shifted, the anger which had previously adorned it had transformed into a helpless misery.

"I'm not… I'm not… I'm not my father Joe." He said, desperately, and his eyes met Joey's, and though they were hard and closed off, there was a film of angry water which was veiling them, and Joey hated that Chandler could be like this, that he could feel like this when he was the best friend and most valued person in Joey's life. He smiled down at him.

"Who said you were, who are you letting down?" he whispered, and suddenly Chandler had grabbed his head and was pulling him down to meet his mouth and Joey was pressing against him, and the rage and tension between them had transformed into something much more passionate, and equally powerful. He hoisted Chandler up by his shirt and wrapped his arms around the taller man.

"Joey I –"

"Shut up man…"

Joey pushed Chandler up against the wall of their apartment by his shoulders, and reveled in the moan that escaped Chandler's lips as he pushed his body up against his. He kissed his friends mouth hungrily and angrily, and felt Chandler's hands in his hair gripping him ever tighter and closer, trying to merge their bodies into one. Joey could hardly breathe as Chandler's hands ran over his back, and his lips left Chandler's mouth and trailed down his neck.

"Bedroom…" he growled, almost inaudibly, and Chandler did nothing to resist. Leaving a trail of shed sweaters, belts and shoes they tumbled through the door and Joey pushed Chandler down into his bed.

Joey amended his thoughts. _That_ was how it had started.

---

Joey closed his eyes and tried to wish himself away from this confrontation. Having experienced it on several previous occasions, he was aware of what alcohol did to Chandler's reasoning; occasions of sex with Janice, fooling around in closets with Joey's sister and making out with nearly all of his friends sprung to mind, and he really didn't want to be around to witness a repeat of Chandler's drunken acceptance of an attraction to Joey because it would invariably end up with either another punch in the face or some irrational behaviour on Chandler's part. He didn't think he was quite as stupid as to attempt suicide over a crisis of sexuality, but a bout of intense espresso drinking or madly insecure dash after bizarre women such as Janice seemed plausible.

In his sleep Chandler grunted and turned over to face Joey. Their faces were centimeters apart and even through his nerves Joey had time to contemplate the intense expression Chandler's face held even when sleeping; eyebrows frowning and his mouth grumpily upturned. Joey decided he'd taken enough risks to last him a while so didn't choose to stir from his position with his arm around Chandler's waist and their lips hovering dangerously close together.

Chandler's eyes drifted open slightly and squinted at Joey with a vague recognition. They closed again before snapping open as if he'd just been hit by lightening. Joey would have found his alarmed expression amusing had it not been for the precariousness of their current situation.

"Hey Joe!" Chandler cried deliriously.

"Hey" replied Joey, warily.

"You uh… wanna explain what's happened here?"

"Chandler you didn't have that many martinis not to remember…"

"Oh God…"

"What? For God's sake Chandler it's not like I forced you into anything!"

"I know it's just…"

"It's just what?"

"Joey… we slept together! We, me and you, you know… Joey and Chandler, the guys across the hall who watch Baywatch and fear commitment, slept together, as in… with each other." His voice had taken on that high pitched, panicked quality that it did when he was alarmed, and Joey tried to restrain his anger as Chandler's hands started gesticulating madly and eyes shut as if to block out reality.

"I'm aware of that Chandler, yes."

"Oh, _my_ God!"

"Oh come on man, I know this is weird, but you don't have to act all… I dunno, freaked out and disgusted by it. You seemed pretty keen last night." Joey was considering swinging his legs out of the bed and just walking away from Chandler and the entire situation, when a gentle punch to his stomach averted his attention.

"No, OK, no. I'm sorry." There was a silence as both men lay on their back looking at the ceiling. Joey glanced across at Chandler, who seemed to be immersed in thought. "But… I mean, no, never mind. It's just… no that's not it. That's not the problem… of course that's not the problem Joey! Well it is the problem, but not in the way you think it is. I think, I just may think that I reconciled myself with the fact that I was attracted to you sometime about when I started attempting to suck you're face off. Just… never mind."

"What?"

"Well – just having to come to terms with the fact that I really am my father…"

Joey sighed disgustedly.

"Chandler – you are not you're father. You're not married, you're not a cross-dresser, you don't work the Las Vegas gay scene, and as far as I know you've only had one homosexual experience. That doesn't even necessarily make you gay!"

"Where'd you learn that?"

"Is that the point?" Chandler gave him a disparaging look, and Joey tried to look condescending. "I did occasionally listen to Ross when he was trying to convince himself that his marriage wasn't a total sham and that Carol _could_ have been attracted to him."

"OK. Thanks."

"That wasn't it was it?"

"What?"

"That wasn't the problem."

"Yeah it was. That was totally it. Problem all gone now."

"What is the problem?"

"Well, Joey… Urm, well, the thing is… never mind."

"No, come on… what?"

"I can't say it."

"Why not?"

"Because… because you could hate me? Because I don't know what I'd do if you said no? Because I don't want to ruin our friendship? Because… I know what you're like after you've slept with people?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying… I'm trying to say… what I'm thinking is… I basically… I… think I want to make something of this, because… you know, I don't exactly know how I feel, but I know that I can't just go on pretending like this never happened, and go back to the way we were before. I mean last night, or as much as I remember of it… was great, and it felt… so… easy, you know? And it's just… I've crossed this line and I don't think I can go back now, you may hate me because it might be all about the sex for you and I know what you're like when you've had the sex with someone, it's all very wham-bam-thankyou ma'am, but in this case it's sir, which is just weird actually… but anyway, no, I kind of have a fear I'm just going to be one of them and if you don't want anything more from me then, well, that's technically our friendship gone because I'll still like you and you'll just be screwing away at all those women and…"

"I would love to make something of this." A surprised smile crossed Chandler's face.

"Seriously?" he asked.

"Look… I've had my fair share of women. In fact, I've had quite a few other people's share of women…"

"Is this headed somewhere?"

"Right, right… but all of those women who I've been with, the ones I didn't like so much, and the ones I really liked, the ones I've left, or who have left me, who's the one person who I've always been constant with? Who has always been there for me, and who I could never imagine… not spending the rest of my life with?"

Joey almost surprised himself with those words, Chandler had always been far more eloquent than him, but as he considered them curiously, discovered that they were actually something that he'd always known, just never known he'd known. Spending his life without Chandler was an idea he'd never contemplated, and even though he never looked too far into the future, he had always had this vague idea, a faint blur in his head, of Chandler being there with him, and now that he had rationalized his feelings into something cohesive he found the whole thing entirely natural. He hadn't removed his arm from around Chandler's waist and was watching the fairer man's reaction. "So yeah… to make a point… I do want to make something of this, because man, I love you as a friend more than anyone I've ever met, and I really think that loving you as a something else couldn't be far different."

Chandler looked bashfully at him, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

"So I guess that means we're… you know…"

"We're really going to have to find a word for it." Joey grinned back. Chandler's smile suddenly twisted into a frown of concern.

"But wait – we've got to supply some ground rules. No girly stuff."

"Right so… no flowers."

"No flowers? I mean… of course not, no flowers." Chandler reiterated defensively, hastily covering his tracks.

"Well OK, occasionally flowers… but no romantic movies. Or-or… you know, anniversary dramas"

"There's going to be an anniversary?"

"I don't know!"

"OK yeah, and no… candlelit dinners…"

"Oh-oh-oh! Mixed tapes with stupid songs on them!"

"Joe?"

"Yah."

"We're lying in bed together, half naked, discussing ways to make our guy on guy relationship more manly… Is this weird?"

Joey thought about it. "You know what" he decided "I don't care!" and before Chandler could protest he swooped across and kissed him firmly on the lips, feeling decidedly amused as the other man blushed and grumbled.

"I'm Chandler" he sniggered "Could I _be_ any more turned on?"

**Fin **

Review? You know you want to…


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